SE, the concept of "Limited Jobs" is a really bad idea, turn back now

[Elerus]

Finally dipped my toes into Blue Mage, and it's no different from what I expected. There's no way this holds up long-term and it has relegated an entire class to a soon-to-wither on the vine sidegame. The sad part is that there are parts that work well and are interesting but instead of taking on the challenge of integration and expansion Square basically amputated the concept at the knees. I'll call them out on this the same as I did when Blizzard pulled this kind of nonsense - and we all saw how their half-baked rehashes of content without consideration worked out - lookin' at you Azerite Power vis a vis Artifacts.

[Raikai]

which is nothing like its offline counterparts.[/B]

That is the whole reason on why they approached BLU like this, no? To attempt fidelity on its classical concept.

SMN for example, doesn't look anything like it's classical fantasy, and that's the only downside of the job. Even RDM has just a minor resemblance of the utility the original concept brings mixing supportive and offensive magic.

[Shougun]

SMN for example, doesn't look anything like it's classical fantasy, and that's the only downside of the job. Even RDM has just a minor resemblance of the utility the original concept brings mixing supportive and offensive magic.

I don't mean to be insulting but I think a large part of that was a design decision mistake and not any mechanical reality, since WoW (with imo inferior graphics) has a much stronger pet presence than summoner via warlock (even though there are a lot of situational pets they do have more fully designed options as well, besides just being "bigger"). Rather than improve that presence they went the opposite direction lol, but they're rotating now as seen with Demi-Bahamut and Ahk Morn. Spirit master from Aeon having big fancy summons too, although I have no idea how they played since I didn't play that class way back when. FFXI as well, although I can understand if everyone became very hesitant if SE said "FFXI summoner is our inspiration for FFXIV" (since for a long while it was a sort of buff pez dispenser XD).

At least imo, SMN is not an example of why SE can't make classic jobs - SMN is just an example of they didn't make a job as close as some people wanted it to be. To be fair SMN throughout the series have been healers and damage dealers with summons, so definitely part of the image is captured - I think people who complain (like me hahahaha) just care about the summons themselves (and I think they've recently made some better decisions for summoner, I'm thankful and excited for that).

Anyway, imo if SMN != SMN it's not because of the MMORPG environment, its because of design choices that could have been different. I don't really like seeing SMN used as an excuse why Blue Mage "must" be limited. Also SMN could have a "limited" (extra side content) section for the development of egi glamour features, that could be fun (with broken primal summoning outside of the eye of the community in some other circus cause why not lol (warrior of the dark here we come!!)). I definitely think limited side content on top of a normal job is a great idea (even if they release the components over a period of time), but exclusively limited makes me a bit sad.

[ToriiMiyuki]

RDM actually resembles OG RDM a LOT. You throw out spells from Black and White mages, and what's more you even throw down like a melee DPS. You've even got key utility heals, a damn RESSURECT and you even have raid buffs.

BLU is a joke. There is no reason beyond egoism and laziness that would drive the dev team to design it the way they did. It was an afterthought. It is not actually broken - I can't believe anyone actually fell for such an excuse - BLU's literally a test to see if the community will accept the lowest effort content next to Eureka.

And you know what? It looks like a smashing success, so for any players that are interested in real depth? The fun might stop now. Unsub until March, then Unsub til Shadowbringers. It's really all you can do unless we speak up, but it's been a losing fight against this kind of trash since 1.23's transformation to ARR. I'm honestly ready to throw in the towel.

[Maero]

I am actually enjoying it for the most part that is until tried to get the ability from Tam Tara. Ran over 10x and still nothing.
Figures SE would tie in behind their awful RNG system.

[CryBloodwing]

I personally think it is fine. There are plenty of classes that are for group play. One class like this is not that bad.

If anything for group content though, a few dungeons, where each party members goes in as a blue mage, and gets 10 random skills out of all possible ones would be fun.

[MsQi]

OP: Blue is designed for group play.

[Burningskull]

I personally think it is fine. There are plenty of classes that are for group play. One class like this is not that bad.

If anything for group content though, a few dungeons, where each party members goes in as a blue mage, and gets 10 random skills out of all possible ones would be fun.

BLU isn't designed for Solo play either. Only thing you can do with it solo is kill overworld mobs. That's where the solo aspect ends. That and the Masked Carnivale which they could have done and make BLU a full time job instead of a part time job that can't contribute dps as a dps job.

[BlitzAceRush]

I'm just going to re-post what I said in another thread.

Now having gotten BLU to 50 and tried out getting some primal abilities and messing around with it my opinion is that BLU is too conflicted to be anything currently.

Given how bosses are mostly immune to their attacks BLU could have been given some more solid abilities, buffed up and made a normal job with the carnival as an addition. Right now while you may be able to utterly destroy trash mobs, bosses pretty much laugh at you, if we were back in the 2.0 days BLU would be shunned from pretty much all content and would be begging for buffs. I felt useless going after those primal abilities, pretty much not even really contributing just getting carried.

They need to commit to a path for Limited jobs because right now it feels like their trying too hard to walk a line that's just leaving them feeling lacklustre.
Either, balance them, give them some core skills and let them function as standard jobs with some fun bells and whistles or just throw off the chains, let them be busted, two shot primal's, solo raids and just be monsters of the content their allowed to do, let them earn their limited status.
Because right now, the only way they're earning it is that you'd not want to subject others to having to carry them in the duty finder.

BLU should be able to solo or with just other BLU's do everything their allowed to do, and well enough for it to feel fun and worth it over just getting a max level normal job to carry them, if limited jobs are going to work they need to feel mighty in the box they've been confined to.

[Bright-Flower]

I don't mind it. For one thing, if it wasn't added as a limited job I doubt we'd be seeing blu anytime soon. If they made blu a normal job, there's a lot more they would have to do.

Trim down the massive amount of buttons and get rid of the spell selection, so that like all other jobs, it has its full kit available consistently.

Work the spells into a job gauge and rotation that is interesting and unique, while still fitting the game's systems.

Balance said rotation.

Given that they can only do so many actual full jobs per expansion, I think it was either limited blue mage...or no blue mage at all. Afterall they just added red mage as a casting dps. The game hasn't had a tank or healer since HW. And I doubt, with all the overhead new jobs bring for all future expansions, that they can keep doing two full jobs per expansion forever. (Job quests, new abilities, balancing, new weapon models and artifact armor etc all adds up over time.)

If BLU was a normal job we wouldn't have it in 4.5, or 5.0, or quite possibly even 6.0 or beyond.